Yes, I was actually on the EPI forum recently and all of the EPI dogs have really poor stools and poor appetites, and weight loss. On fresh food my dog lost weight rapidly, but back on kibble her weight is stable and her body is ideal. I sent them her recent bloodwork and they said it looked indicative of chronic pancreatitis, but a low fat food combined with incubating the food in enzymes and warm water for 15-20 min usually causes a big turnaround for dogs with that issue.
My vet told me her behavior is likely 100% behavioral- that my dog is basically just so generally stressed that she is resorting to eating- and since she doesn’t have loose stool or diarrhea that she may just have general IBD but to keep her on this same food since her stools are nice and firm with it.
I know she is ravenous because when we go out on walks the entire walk she is nose to the ground sniffing for food and poop. Sometimes she will be so keen to find food or crumbs that she literally bumps into poles and stuff when I try to keep her moving. Sometime we’ll be crossing a busy road and she will drop to the ground to eat something while cars are waiting for us to cross. Before quarantine, when I’d go out to a restaurant, instead of sitting down and hanging out she would be all over me, trying to get onto the table, and crawling all over the surrounding tables on the floor to sniff for crumbs. She wakes up 1-2 hours earlier than usual these days and barks and whines at me to eat. I thought at first it was to go out but if I take her out before feeding her she will just frantically look for food and potty a few minutes into the walk, so I know it’s not bathroom related. After she eats she will drink any and all water in the bowl, and then keep sniffing her food bowl, then go back to water bowl, then come to me and whine and keep doing that over and over. If I don’t strictly monitor her water intake she will just gulp it all away and pee herself while napping. Around 2:30 pm ( dinner is at 5pm) she becomes impossible to deal with. She follows my every move, paws at me constantly, and will just sit there hypervigilant of what I’m doing. If I even move to adjust myself on the couch she will get up as if we were going somewhere. If I’m eating she will literally be underfoot. Her counter surfing has surged, now if I leave anything on the counter in a box she will knock it over. I left a taped box of donuts and went to take out trash down the hallway and when I came back she had taken the entire box down on the floor, ripped it open, and ate 12 donuts in a matter of 45 seconds. When I leave and watch her on the pet camera, she goes straight into the kitchen and jumps up on the counter and sniffs the entire area of it. I’ve always been really food about not leaving anything out, but I was always able to leave fruit out or even boxes of snacks so long at they were closed, but now anything is fair game for her. All of this becomes 10 times worse if we do more activity like long walks, little trips to the park or to the beach…so it’s really diminished our relationship unfortunately. She’s also not very playful anymore, she only grabs her toys when shes hungry and is super rough if I try to play with her so it seems like it’s only agitation.
Previously, she was always a food lover, and would always come and stand in the kitchen if I was cooking or eating, but I would ask her to move away and go sit on her bed and it was that easy. She would only try to steal off the counter if it was open sitting on a plate and no one was in the room, otherwise she wouldn’t touch it. I used to take her everywhere that was pet friendly with me. She was also a much more gentle player.
